The suburban loser hands two cards to the hardware store employee in charge of the paint mixer. One card is a cool jazz club blue and the other is a bleating cherry red. He needs one can of each. Their new house is so big that for the first time his sons will have their own room. His wife let each of the boys pick which color they wanted so moving would seem more fun and less scary. She said they could pick any color they wanted from the big packet of paint samples, and they made sure to select the most obnoxious ones available. When the suburban loser comes home after dark in the years to come, he'll see pale imitations of the colors reflected against the treetops outside their bedroom windows on the upper floor. Blue and red. His eldest son and his youngest son. He'll shake his head, wondering how he ever agreed to such a thing when the rest of the house is adorned in tasteful grays and beiges.